Cefas sees discards hope in USA gear design

Dr Andrew Revill, fisheries scientist and gear technologist from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas), will travel to Rhode Island in the USA in late October to meet the net-maker of an innovative haddock trawl that could significantly cut discards.

Dr Revill and Cefas have been working closely with fishermen around the UK for several years to develop collaborative and effective ways to reduce discards in UK fisheries. Continuing that collaboration, Andy will be joined on his travels by Arnold Locker (Locker Trawlers, Whitby), representing the UK's National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO), and Seafish's senior gear technologist Ken Arkley.

They will meet Jon Knight - founder of Superior Trawls in Rhode Island and the net-maker who makes the innovative trawl design for local fishermen in New England. The haddock trawl is reported to target haddock and whiting selectively in a mixed gadoid fishery while allowing the majority of cod to be released unharmed.

The UK group will meet American fishermen who jointly collaborated on the development of the new trawl and who use it on a commercial basis.  The three will also meet scientists at the University of Rhode Island who have undertaken a substantive scientific assessment of this gear in the Atlantic fisheries off the New England coast.

Andy Revill said: "The trawl design looks promising and could potentially reduce cod catches and discards in some of our mixed fisheries. If this trawl functions well in UK waters it could be a valuable tool to aid cod recovery, particularly where tight restrictions regarding cod quotas currently exist."

Reports from the USA trials indicate that the haddock trawl enables most cod to swim free, unharmed. The Rhode Island design is used, and legislated for, in the northeast Atlantic as a cod-conservation tool.  It allows fishermen to continue to fish for haddock in areas where they would otherwise be banned because of cod bycatch restrictions.

Arnold Locker said: "I think the testing of this trawl in the UK is a very good idea and well worth pursuing. We hope the eventual outcome will be commercially viable."

Defra has agreed to fund the trip and subsequent UK sea trials, but Seafish have also recently pledged a significant amount to help to ensure the smooth running of the gear trials in the UK.

Following the USA visit, Cefas will bring the Rhode Island trawl back to Britain and, with the help of the fishing industry, test it on a pilot basis in the North Sea during November. A report about the USA visit and the subsequent North Sea sea trials will follow in December.

Notes to editors

1. Cefas is an internationally renowned scientific research and advisory establishment, based at Lowestoft since 1902. It also has laboratories at Burnham-on-Crouch and Weymouth, and a number of other facilities around the UK. It is an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
2. Cefas undertakes work on fisheries management, environmental protection and aquaculture. It offers a wide range of research, advisory, consultancy and monitoring activities to government departments (UK and foreign, central and local), international agencies, commercial companies and aid organisations. For more detail see the Cefas website: www.cefas.co.uk/.
3. Unwanted bycatch - the capture of "non-target" marine species - is a major fisheries management problem. Fish and other marine animals, sometimes with no commercial value, are accidentally caught by fishermen and then discarded, usually dead, back into the sea. In a recent scientific paper¹ about discards in the English Channel, Western Approaches, Celtic and Irish Seas, Cefas authors concluded that some 63% by number and 35% by weight of all fish caught were discarded.
4. The Rhode Island trawl is a high-lift trawl that incorporates kites and large meshes in the forward parts and the belly sections of the net. Haddock and whiting rise up in the trawl and are directed to and retained in the cod end. Cod, on the other hand, are not retained and allowed to escape, unharmed.
5. The recent Cefas-sponsored Clean Fishing Competition successfully helped to encourage novel gear designs from UK beam trawlermen in the southwest to reduce discards. Competition winner Mike Sharp, skipper of the Lady T Emiel, managed to reduce his discards by 60% while increasing the value of his catch through improved quality. Cefas has also been working successfully with northeast prawn fishermen and shrimp fishermen in The Wash to reduce discards.
6. A photo of Andy Revill is sent with this release.

Press contact: Anne McClarnon: 01502 524370 / anne.mcclarnon@cefas.co.uk

¹ R Enever, A Revill and A Grant (2007), "Discarding around the UK - New information and analyses: 1) English Channel, Western Approaches, Celtic & Irish Sea (ICES subarea VII)", Fisheries Research, Volume 86, Issues 2-3, September 2007.